Gloria Ann White

October, 1941 ~ February 23, 2011

March 4, 2011

By Mike Weland

Gloria White, a 40-year
resident of BoundaryCounty who built a log cabin on land
she owned on Katka
Mountain, died
February 23 at the age of 69. And that might be
off by a year. Her brief obituary, written by a
friend, says she was born in October, 1941. It
doesn’t say where, or who her parents are, or
were.

“Born in 1940, White never
knew her parents well,” wrote TruTv reporter
Denise Noe. “Her mother deserted her when she
was a baby. Her father was not around much. She
was raised in a large family by her
grandparents. Having little use for school, she
dropped out at age 14. She then worked at a
lumber mill and lived on her own.”

According to Noe, Gloria
White married at age 14, became pregnant the
following year and divorced soon after. She
married and divorced a second time, and gave up
on marriage. She had five more children out of
wedlock.

“Attractive with her blue
eyes and soft dark hair, White had many suitors
despite her tender age,” Noe wrote. “White had a
frontier mentality, and sometimes told friends
that she would have been more comfortable in the
19th century rather than the 20th.
She drove a pickup truck, raised livestock and
vegetables, hunted, and home-schooled her kids.
White was extroverted, friendly, ruggedly and
proudly independent, and generous to a fault.
Societal norms, legal or moral, did not get much
consideration.”

On her own, she seldom drew
attention. It was the people she took in who
did, notably Christopher Boyce, who stayed at
her Katka cabin for a short time after escaping
a 40-year sentence at Lompoc Prison,
California,
January 21, 1980, as a
convicted spy.

“Since Gloria White held
little regard for the law,” Noe wrote, “she did
not blanch when Boyce told her he wanted to rob
banks for some easy money.”

This, apparently, after
finding work at local nurseries too dull.

“Boyce was not intimidated
by bank robbery,” she went on. “After all, he
had committed espionage. White aided Boyce in
his new pursuit by supplying him with theatrical
make-up and sometimes applying it … Together
with the accomplices he met through White, Boyce
perpetrated at least 16 bank robberies.”

On
August 28, 1981, Boyce was arrested
while eating in his car outside "The Pit Stop,"
a drive-in restaurant in Port
Angeles, Washington.
Authorities had received a tip about Boyce's
whereabouts from his former bank robbery
confederates.

Except in the media, White
was never implicated, and she lived a mostly
quiet life under the craggy face of Katka
despite the media attention.

She is survived by two
daughters, four sons, 16 grandchildren and eight
great-grandchildren. She had many friends who
loved her, and will miss her for her generosity,
strength, wisdom and compassion.

A fireside service will be
held for her at her cabin on Katka face at
1 p.m. Sunday, March 6.